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In the last month, I’ve lost two pair of scissors. One was a limited edition ginger and the other was given to me by a friend and had a great stitched fob on it. I’ve also managed to break another set that I adored and was a special gift from a friend. Both of the lost sets were out on the table next to where I stitch when they disappeared. I’ve looked where I normally keep scissors I’m not using… I’ve looked in the couch cushions and even looked in the areas where the cats like to hang out and sleep all day. They are just gone. 😦

I decided that even though I’m unemployed and basically surviving on weekly unemployment paychecks (I refuse to spend savings unless it’s really important), I found myself at the Silver Needle website and got a little carried away! I ordered 3 pretty sets of scissors when I really don’t need any at all! Nothing fancy or too expensive…but I couldn’t decide between the three I liked so I got all of them. Besides, I have three large projects going right now and each of them really deserve their own set of scissors…. right???

My only saving grace over this is the fact that even though I have all day every day to drive the short hour to the House of Stitches(which happens to have a South Bend Chocolate source right on the way), I haven’t done so since right after I lost my job. This has been my only stash enhancement since early March.

I’m on month two of working non stop on Alpine Seasons. There have been some breaks here and there, but I’m making some good progress… expect an update pic soon!

I have some other possible good news, but I’m superstitious so I’m not going to say anything about it until it’s a sure thing….

OK, so I’ve been unemployed now for about a month and have barely done any stitching! I’m working right now on a frog pattern for a friend of mine… its pretty small and I hope to finish it this week:

So far I have the purple frog and half of the orange frog finished. Its kind of annoying to stitch though, this is a dimensions kit came with aida fabric, so no quarter stitches were charted for the edges of the frogs. I replaced the fabric with white linen so am having to rechart a little as I go as I cannot abide by half stitches extended beyond the backstitched lines as shown in the photo above. 🙂 I’m such a snob.

I’m feeling extra motivated to finish this up because I want to do a Victoria Sampler pattern! I’ve had the VS Heirloom Stitching Sampler leaflet for over a year and can’t start it becuase I haven’t purchased fabric or the accessory pack. I was inspired to get going on this by Christine’s fabulous progress! So yesterday I made the one hour trek to House of Stitches and picked up what I needed to get started. I spent about 2 hours this morning separating out all of the threads and becoming utterly confused by the difference between “Gray Brown” and “Gray Green Dark,” both of which just looked brown to me. They had different yardages, so its not like I could just pick one and go with it either because if I picked the wrong name to go with the color, I’d end up short while stitching. Finally I found that the VS website gives the yardages of each color, so I was able to figure that out. At one point it seemed that I had an extra color, too, but I got that figured out after an additional half hour of puzzling.

Also, while at House of Stitches, I picked up leaflets and fabric for Lizzie Kate’s2008 Double Flip Living with Charm. This calls for several overdyes but I’m planning to stitch it with just DMC as I don’t think it will make much difference… plus my income right now consists of unemployment from the State of Indiana (yay! I was approved!) and after all of my other purchases, couldn’t justify spending the extra cash. I’m doing the whole thing as a banner. I’m not normally a fan of Lizzie Kate, but I happen to really like this one!

So…. I’ve got lots of stitching to do!

I did have an interview last week for a temporary job which I think I’m a good fit for, but found out today that they offered the job to someone else last week. The person hasn’t accepted the offer yet and I guess if it doens’t work out with that person, I’m still in strong contention for the job.

I loathe the watchmakers cases I’ve been using to store my beads in. The lids don’t fit right unless you bend the bases enough to make the lids stick… and last time I went to look for beads, I opened one of the cases to find that most of the beads had somehow spilled out of their individual containers and were a mixed mess. So, over the weekend I was in Joanne’s and saw this!

The individual containers are clear and have screw top lids! I bought two! I did a little bead organizing today and ended up with this:

Yep – those are all of the beads I have (not very many, I know). I used a fine-tipped sharpie to write the bead numbers on the lids. I might try to find some tiny sticky labels for future use, but for now, I’m happy with this. Over the weekend I worked on a little piece that I ordered from House of Stitches. It’sSweetheart Tree’sPink Flowers on Gingham:

Isn’t it pretty? I love that gingham linen! I’m going to stitch it again and make a biscornu (It came with a heart shaped button for the center which isn’t attached yet). I knew my friend Susan would like it and sent one to her also and we’ve been doing a stitch along together. I also ordered SHT’s new Colonial Roses Biscornu. I won’t be getting any new stash anytime soon. I lost my job last week and just can’t justify anything new when I’ve got so many things I can start and work on in my stash already. Its finally warming up here! I went out today without a coat! The piles of snow are melting! I’m looking for crocus…..

Saturday I picked up Susan and her son and we headed to LaPorte to visit House of Stitches. Susan will be moving soon and this might have been our last chance to hang out for a day.

Susan’s son was kind enough to take our picture out side the shop:

I was looking primarily for fibers for the Victoria Sampler Summer Biscornu Contest (join the group and click on “files” for more info) and found some pretty things… We also had fun chatting with the ladies who work in the shop.

Anyway, after our shopping, we stopped for lunch then spent the day stitching at Susan’s place. What a fun day!

So, I took a trip to House of Stitches today to pick up floss and flossaway bags for Chatelaine’s Alhambra Garden (pics courtesy of Annette’s blog). I also saw LHN’s Traveling Stitcher and had to have that, then picked up a lovely piece of fabric for Alhambra. I’ll post a pic of the floss toss when I’m ready to get started on that.

DBF was kind and granted my wish to see Twlight… it was fluffy, but I liked it and surprisingly enough, DBF didn’t seem to mind too much. I do have to say I’ve been to Forks, Washington and most of this movie was filmed in the Columbia River Gorge rather than the Olympic Peninsula. I’ve hiked to the top of the gigantic waterfall shown in the movie. Anyway, I’ve read the whole series of books, and while not really literature, I enjoyed the pure entertainment value of the books w/out having to think too hard about things like symbolism or deeper meaning.

I’ve been stitching exclusively on Chatelaine’s Alpine Seasons since last week and am having fun with it. I’ve been working my way through the mountains and trees in the upper left hand corner and here’s how it looks so far:

I have a goal of finishing up this section before I work on anything else…. At that point I’ll decide if I want to work on more borders in another quadrant or move onto another piece. I really only have one other WIP right now, so I think something new is in order when I’m ready to move on.

A couple of days ago, I went through all of my old Just Cross Stitch Ornament issues and picked out some ornaments I’d like to do this year. At Christmas, I wished I had more stitched ornaments on my tree, so have toyed with the idea of doing an ornament a month in 2009. I came up with 7 and made up a list of supplies I’d need and headed off to House of Stitches on Saturday morning and had a very sucessful trip! I found everything I needed, got a piece of fabric for Chatelaine’s Alhambra, some pretty gingham linen (called for in one of the ornaments), two JCS ornament issues that I didn’t have, and Mill Hill diamond ornament. When I got to the checkout, I ended up spending less than I’d estimated, AND received these great “customer appreciation” gifts. The ruler is magnetic. They are so cute:

Last night I ran across Victoria Sampler’s January/February newsletter and saw that Thea has released the most BEAUTIFUL, HUGE sampler, called Heirloom Stitching Sampler… It’s her 100th publication and this sampler is a full 31″ long!! It has almost 40 different specialty stitches! I absolutely love it and just know that I’ll have to stitch it at some point.